FROM PROFESSOR E. C. BESSEY, OF THE IOWA AGRICULTURAL COL- 

 LEGE, JANUARY 17TH, 1874. 



You refer to a problem which is somewhat difficult to solve ; i. e., 

 What is the proper work to be done on an experimental farm and 

 garden ? As you say, you cannot expect to compete with the 

 shrewd and successful people about you, already engaged in farm- 

 ing and market gardening. It is difficult to determine, in an ex- 

 perimental garden, for example, how far it is profitable to illustrate 

 the commoner operations in gardening by their actual performance. 

 We hardly know yet when to begin or end our work, for there has 

 been comparatively little done in systematizing either horticulture or 

 agriculture. 



The fact of an experimental station being connected with an in- 

 stitution of learning, adds somewhat to the complications of the 

 case ; for many things must be done in such case which otherwise 

 would be unnecessary : and yet, from an experience of eight 

 years as student and teacher, I am inclined to believe 

 that the greatest good can be done by making the Arbori- 

 culture, the Botanical and Experimental Gardens, rather 

 adjuncts to the natural sciences, than the reverse. That is y 

 I am pretty well assured that it will result in greater good, if the 

 natural and physical sciences are made the centers, so to speak r 

 from which to pass outward to the so-called practical sciences. I 

 should teach Horticulture very largely as Economic Botany, treat- 

 ing it from the standpoint of the latter science ; thus leaving most 

 of that which, relates to the details of planting, caring, and gather- 

 ing of crops, to be learned by the student elsewhere. The market 

 gardens to be found about any of our larger cities, and the many 

 well-conducted farms to be found in any county, will afford facilities 

 for learning much more easily all that pertains to the minutiae of 

 either, than any model garden or farm it is now possible to estab- 

 lish. 



It is not altogether unlikely that, in the School of Agriculture 

 of the future, the student will be taught the natural and physical 

 sciences, and then be given a year or two in which to thoroughly 

 acquaint himself with the details, on some well-conducted farm. 

 Perhaps, in such case, the degree of Bachelor of Science may be 



